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The White Man In The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe

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Strong black males have put fear into the hearts of many white people even before the Civil War. Around the 1860s, white southerners were overwhelmed with the fear that one day their slaves will revolt and attack their masters. Frederick Douglass is a perfect example of a strong black male evoking fear into white people. Frederick Douglass struck fear into white people just as Pluto, from Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Black Cat,” struck fear into his owner. “The Black Cat” represents the relationship between a slave and their master. Poe makes the connection that animals and slaves basically had the same rights. In the 1800s, animals and slaves could be purchased, “sent up the river,” and even murdered with zero legal repercussions. Animals
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Throughout Frederick Douglass’s Narrative, he recalls the inhumane acts that were thrusted upon him as a slave, but overcame the abuse of the common practice. Specifically, Douglass since childhood worked in a plantation as a slave, but from him learning to read and write, he escapes and teaches the people of the North the hardships of slavery, where he faced deprivation through exploitation, discovered there were more opportunities for slaves as he approaches the North, and gains power to change of his life due to his knowledge. For instance, the slaves were put into lower social positions than their masters through social manipulation, in ways of isolation and deprivation, so they would not leave the plantations. To illustrate, in the plantations many of “the white

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Due to the fear most slaves felt, Douglass stands out

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Frederick Douglass, a slave of the deep south makes his escape into the free north, but even after his escape he can “trust no man”. No matter the color of one’s skin either black or white, Douglass has a deep sense of mistrust in any man, engraved into his person by the years of “the wretchedness of slavery”. Douglass’ diction in his narrative shows how slavery can shape a man into a self conscious and paranoid person. Throughout his life as a slave, Douglass was constantly exposed to conditions in which the only way to survive was to fight for his life. Like the sisters who were raised by wolves -Amala and Kamala- Douglass is not adapted to society and does not trust anyone but himself.

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On one hand, the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is a narrative of a slave attempting to become free. On the other hand, it is a narrative of how African Americans are mentally and physically turned into slaves—moreover how white men manifest their superiority. Firstly, Frederick was separated from his mother as a young child, leaving no time for the two to build a relationship; “I received the tidings of my mother’s death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger” (Douglass, 6). Secondly, Edward Covey, one of Fredericks slaveholders, strategies in establishing his dominance was through making him work relentlessly and punishing him when he felt necessary—which almost never was necessary. Frederick understands how slaveholders can make their slaves feel inferior and degrade them through physical power however is intrigued with the idea of how slaveholders dominate their slaves minds.

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In “The Raven,” he suggests that the eyes of the Raven symbolize his inner demons, claiming that they stare into his soul and compress his heart with the guilt he carries. This is evident when he describes the raven’s eyes as “fiery eyes [which had] now burned into my bosom’s core” (Poe 74). The eyes of the raven continually haunt the narrator throughout the poem, and since the poem is a projection of Poe’s emotions, it can be understood that Poe sees the eyes as a constant reminder of the burden of grief he has within himself. Similarly, in “The Black Cat,” the narrator of the story becomes angry with his cat, Pluto, and tears out one of his eyes while under the influence of alcohol. He eventually kills his cat, in a fit of rage, and then believes that the cat comes back to haunt him; He encounters a similar cat that bears a strange resemblance to Pluto.

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483 Words | 2 Pages

What gives the reader that feeling of being on the edge of their seat? Why would he want the reader to anticipate what’s going to happen next? That is how the author expresses tension. The author does this by using literary devices. Edgar Allen Poe builds suspense in “The Black Cat” by using specific literary devices—foreshadowing, allusion, and slow pace.

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The protagonist of The Black Cat is the nameless Narrator. The readers do not know much about him except for the fact that he is an abuser and also a killer. He makes life challenging for all of his co-habitants, including his wife and two animals. Moreover, he makes life a living hell for himself because he is a victim of his evil deeds. The Narrator tells his story while being in a prison cell on the night he is scheduled to be executed.

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In these two stories Poe uses foreshadowing in way that if the reader spots the small details or Poes “word playing “ he/she can predict what will happen or get a hint of what will happen. In Black Cat there are few foreshadows. One foreshadow is when the narrator sees a cat in the wall and Pluto`s color being black is believed to be unlucky and in this story the narrator is unhappy and unlucky. The narrator gets gouth because of a cat being inside a wall.

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Poe wrote "the black death" at least two hundred years before the Ebola out break happened. So i do not think that he was talking about Ebola when he wrote it. Another thing would be the symptoms and expectancy of living. vomiting,diarrhea,and dizziness, where as read death's only symptom was bleeding from all areas. With the red death it took up to thirty minutes for the person to die but the Ebola it took up to three weeks for the victim to even feel the effects.

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“The Narrative of Frederick Douglass” displays many historical context of racism. African-Americans were discriminated and dehumanized as animals. This persuaded other Americans of considering racism as a natural law that was encouraged to partake in. Racism in the United States was invented partly to justify that African-Americans were enslaved partly because of their physical differences from whites. Douglass became grew tiresome with racism.

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The narrator of “The Black Cat” is an alcoholic. By mistreating his pets and wife, he demonstrates how his addiction affects him. Alcoholism itself is an act of insanity because alcoholics see things in an entirely different manner than sober people. The narrator had a sufficient childhood and had a great deal of pets. Once he grew addicted

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171 Words | 1 Pages

On this story the author Edgar Allan Poe sees himself in the suffering of the unknown narrator. He is a person who suffers a lot in his life and passes through a lot of things. Later, he begins to hate many people and things because of the suffering that he is passing through. On this particular story he has an old neighbor who is a blind person that has develop many other senses but he doesn’t have his vision. The author on this story loves the old man, except the fact that the old man has a blue pale eye and he hate it so much that he disgust his neighbor so he decides to kill him.

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This essay will be focusing on the world where his story “The Black Cat” takes place. This world of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” is unnatural, with heavy themes of violence. Characters in this world behave unnaturally with violence and cruelty, and murder is commonplace. “The Black Cat”" starts off a man who loves his black cat Pluto. Though he loves Pluto he begin starts to have outbursts due to alcoholism.

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Compare/Contrast paragraph Edgar Allan Poe’s stories “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” have similarities and differences. Some of the similarities are in the way the story was told and the narrators’ mindset. As a beginning, the stories have lots of common things in the way they were told. They are both written in first-person point of view and they both start from the prison. For example the main character in “The Black Cat” said “My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events.

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588 Words | 3 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe addresses the dark and gruesome side of human nature in his writing “The Black Cat”, which during that time and even now are perceived as radical ideas. This dark human nature is displayed in Poe’s writing as the narrator recalls the happenings of a most erratic event. The narrator, a pet lover with a sweet disposition, in this story succumbs to the most challenging aspects of human nature including that of addiction, anger, and perverseness. To the Christian believer, human’s sinful flesh leads people to do wrong because that is their natural tendency.

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